Social Economies of Fear and Desire

Social Economies of Fear and Desire contributes to the study of emotional life as bound to social life. It shows that emotional experience is structured by forms of felt in/capacity₇emotional norms that emerge through the successes and failures of embodied beings in the exercise of autonomy, and that are acquired through emotional socialization. Economies of fear and desire are the social configurations within which particular kinds of urges to act can be placed, together with the danger and security signs that trigger their experience, the objects of fear and desire they designate, and the means in the exercise of power with which they become associated. Their study should aid in the understanding of contemporary forms of suffering and well-being.